The Westerners Part 18

"Name it; it is yours."

"I want you to teach me how to make an a.s.say."

"It would be a pleasure. I will do it gladly."

"Is it difficult?"

"Not very."

"When shall we begin?"

"When you say."

Lafond reflected. "Well, I will bring some ore in a day or two."

Then, after a pause, as though in deference to the att.i.tude he knew the old man held in regard to such things, he added, "It must be very interesting, this making of gold from the rock."

"And more interesting still," supplemented Durand gently, "is the thrill of a shared thought."

The racc.o.o.n stood on his hind legs in his master's lap, and began deliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets, deftly inserting his little black hands, almost human, and watching the man's face with alert eyes. Durand took the animal's small head between both his palms, and smiled at him affectionately.

"Ah, Jacques, _polisson_! Thou art a rogue, and dost learn early what thy master's race doth teach. See, Lafond, how the little villain would even now rob the very one who doth give to him his daily bread and all that which he hath." He softly rubbed the small, black nose with the flat of his palm, much to its owner's disgust. Jacques backed off deliberately to the floor, where he sneezed violently, while Durand gazed at him with a kindly smile.

After leaving the cabin, Black Mike no longer slouched along unseeing.

He burned with the inspiration of an idea. Just where the idea would lead him, or how it would work out in its final processes, he did not know; but he had long since grown accustomed to relying blindly on such exaltations of confidence as the present, sure that details would develop when needed. He believed in letting the pot boil.

Through the town he walked with brisk, business-like steps, out into the higher gulch. There he soon came upon signs of industry. Up a hill he could hear the ring of axes and the occasional rush of a falling tree, sounding like grouse drumming in the spring. He followed the sound. Half way up the knoll, he discovered a cabin and three shafts. A rude sign announced that this represented the surface property of the Great Snake Mining and Milling Company. Lafond halted abruptly when he saw the sign. For perhaps half an hour he looked over, with the eye of a connoisseur, the three piles of ore at the mouths of the three shafts, approving silently of the evidence of slate walls, crumbling between his strong fingers the oxygenated quartz, putting his tongue to the harder specimens to bring out their color by moisture, gazing with some curiosity at the darker hornblende. Finally he selected a number of the smaller specimens, with which he filled the ample pockets of his shooting-coat. After this he returned to town and the Little Nugget saloon, where he emptied his pockets on the bar.

"Get some of that packin' stuff out behind," he commanded Frosty, "and with it construct a shelf there by the mirror."

He stood over Frosty while the latter, frightened into clumsiness, hammered his fingers, the wall, the rude shelf, anything but the nail.

Finally, Lafond thrust him aside with a curse, and finished the job himself. On the completed shelf he ranged about half of the specimens which he had picked up from the ore dumps. Beneath these he tacked a label, indicating that they were from the Great Snake Mine.

Then he joined Jack Graham outside, and settled down to watch the group of men engaged in laying the foundation timbers of a new log shack.

XVIII

TIRED WINGS

In spite of the fact that she had laughed at Graham's blindness in falling into her trap, Molly Lafond felt enough curiosity to induce her to enter into several conversations with him during the course of that afternoon. He sat by the door whistling. Out in the sun the men cut logs, notched ends, heaved and pushed. The girl alternated between personal encouragement of the workers, and a curious examination of the idler.

Graham interested her because he puzzled her. The young man no longer held to the quizzical and cynical att.i.tude he had a.s.sumed in the morning, but neither did he at once manifest that personal interest which she had imagined inevitable. He caught at her statement that she had done nothing but "read, read, read." In the course of twenty minutes he had made her most keenly aware of her deficiencies, and that without the display of any other motive than a frank desire to discuss the extent of her knowledge. He opened to her fields whose existence she had never suspected; he showed her that she had but superficially examined those she had entered. Authors she had much admired he disposed of cavalierly, and in their stead subst.i.tuted others of whom she had never heard.

"I like Bulwer," she remarked, secure in her cla.s.sic because it had been the only one of Sweeney's collection to come in a set and bound in brown leather.

"Bulwer, yes," said Graham, pulling his little moustache, and speaking, as his habit sometimes was, more to himself than to his companion. "We all go through that stage, but we get over it after awhile. You see, he's superficial and awfully pedantic. There is much beauty in it, too. I remember in one of his novels--I forget which--there is a picture of a child tossing her ball skyward, with eyes turned upward to the skies, that is worth a good deal."

"It's in _What Will He Do with It?_" cried Molly, aglow at being able to interpolate correctly.

"Yes," a.s.sented Graham, indifferently. "It has something to do with youth, I think. Before our critical judgment grows up and finds him out, there is a peculiar elevation about Bulwer's themes and treatment.

His world is blown; but it is big, and his figures have a certain scornful n.o.bility about them. If I were to compete with the gentleman under discussion," he concluded, with a slight laugh, "I would say that he throws upon the true gold of youthful ideals, hopes, and dreams, the light of his own tinsel."

Molly was subdued, humbled. She was deprived at a stroke of all her weapons. For the first time she found herself looking up to a man, and wondering whether she could ever meet him on terms of equality. She caught herself covertly scrutinizing Graham to see if he too realized his advantage. He was genuinely interested; that was all. He seemed to take it for granted that she was already on his level. This encouraged her somewhat.

Whenever she again joined the group of sweating men at work on her house, she felt subtly that she was returning from a far country. She had brought back with her something new. The nature of the conversation had lifted her to the contemplation of fresh possibilities of human intercourse. With a defiant toss of the head she indulged herself to the extent of imagining several Bulwer-like conversations, in which she dealt out brilliant generalities to the universal applause. It was the first flight her wings had essayed; the first charm not merely physical that she had experienced with one of the other s.e.x. She felt she was going to like this man Graham.

And yet that very elation was one of the reasons why, after dinner in the "hotel," she walked with Billy Knapp, although Graham was plainly waiting for her. It had been her first flight; her wings were tired.

The reaction had come.

The dinner itself, and its manner, had much to do with bringing this to her consciousness. Entering at one end of the hotel dining-room, she first became aware of the cook stove at the other, and, behind it, tins. Down the centre extended the three bench-flanked board tables, polished smooth by the combined influences of spilled grease and much rubbing. At certain short intervals had been stationed tin plates, over each of which were stacked, pyramid fashion, an iron knife, fork and spoon. Tin cups s.p.a.ced the plates. Down the centre of each table were distributed thick white china receptacles containing sugar, lumpy and brown with coffee; salt; and b.u.t.ter on the point of melting. At dinner-time the cook placed between these receptacles capacious tins, steaming respectively, with fried and boiled pork, boiled potatoes, cornmeal mush, and canned tomatoes; besides corn bread, soda biscuits, and a small quant.i.ty of milk for the coffee. Then, wiping his glistening face on the red-checked little towel that hung at his waist, he entered the "office" and, seizing a huge bell, clanged forth, now to the right, now to the left, that his meal was ready.

The men ate in their shirt sleeves, those farthest half obscured by the clouds of steam from the uncovered dishes. The cook stove, the dishes, and the men heated the low unventilated room almost to suffocation.

They gobbled their food rapidly, taking noisy swigs of the coffee from the tin cups. As each finished, he wiped his plate clean with the soft inside of a soda biscuit, drew his knife across the bread once or twice, swallowed the gravy-laden biscuit at one mouthful, and departed without further ceremony into the outer air.

It was all thoroughly Western, thoroughly material, thoroughly restful to tired wings.

As the meal progressed, the exaltation faded slowly. Molly received the a.s.siduous attentions of everybody. After dinner, as has been said, she and the wonderful Billy Knapp disappeared into the twilight, leaving the disconsolate miners to find their way to the Little Nugget when it pleased them to do so.

Billy talked. He poured out his confidences. He told how great was Billy, how bright were Billy's prospects, how important were Billy's responsibilities. He was glad to show this young girl the town; it was Billy's town. He was pleased to tell her the names of the hills hereabouts; these hills concealed within their depths the veins of Billy's lodes. He delighted in giving the history of the men they met; for these men looked up to Billy as the architect of their future forties. He spoke enthusiastically of the prospects.

"Thar is a lode," said he earnestly, "over on the J.G. fraction that's sh.o.r.e th' purtiest bit of quartz lead you ever see. The walls is all of slate, running jest's slick side by side, with a clear vein between 'em, and she'll run 'way up, free millin'. I tell you what, Miss Molly, thar's big money in it, thar sh.o.r.ely is! When I get those Easte'n capitalists interested, and ready to put a little _salt_ in, and git up a few mills and necessary buildin's, you'll jest see things hummin' in this yar kentry."

Out of the darkness a silent little figure glided and fell in step with the girl.

"Hullo, bub," said Billy indifferently, and went on to tell what he was going to do. Billy had great plans.

Molly said nothing to the new member of their party, but she reached out her hand and patted the little cotton-covered shoulder. She looked about at the dark town and the hills, and drew a deep breath. This was real, tangible. She felt at home in it, and she was adequate to all that its conditions might bring forth. Above all, she was confident here. Graham and his ideas seemed to her at the moment quite nebulous and phantom-like.

"Let's go to the Little Nugget," she suggested suddenly.

They turned to retrace their steps. As they pa.s.sed an open doorway, a big man darted out with unnatural agility and seized the Kid by the scruff of the neck.

"I beg your pardon, miss, whom I am overjoyed to meet. Standing as I do _in loco parentis_, the claims of the rising generation constrain me to postpone that more intimate acquaintance which your attractions demand of my desire. Come along here, you!" and he dragged the Kid, struggling and crying out, into the dark cabin.

"Ain't he great?" cried Billy, with real enthusiasm. "Ain't he just?

They ain't a man in th' whole Northwest as can sling the langwidge that man can when he tries. You just ought to see him when he cuts loose, you just ought."

"Who is he?" asked Molly.

"Him? What, him? He's Moroney!"

His tone denied the need of further question. They entered the saloon.

The first half hour of Molly's evening in the Little Nugget was constrained. Up to this point she had met the men of the camp under extraordinary circ.u.mstances. Now she was called upon to face them in their time of relaxation and accustomed comfort. Such moments of leisure crystallize for us men everywhere our opinions of people.

Anybody is welcome to sail with us, hunt with us, fish with us, ride with us, work with us, provided he is personally agreeable and understands the game. We are not so undiscriminating when it comes to a study fire and an easy chair. Translate the study fire and the easy chair to the Little Nugget and a quiet game, and you will see one reason for the constraint. No unkindness was intended. The situation was merely, but inevitably, awkward for everybody.